


The Life of Brian, or, a Tale of Woe

by FLWhite, zetaophiuchi (ryuujitsu)



Series: 2 boys, 1 dog, 1 snake [3]
Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: Axel Paninihead Auriant, Do it, Domestic Bliss, Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant Adjacent - Freeform, Humans, Look up RPF if you don't know what it is, M/M, Maxence Hoarder Danet Fauvel, Moving In Together, Oubaaaaaa, RPF, can't stop won't stop, fluff(y dogs, maxel, sentiments), trust us, unparalleled levels of silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-12-25 20:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi
Summary: As a rule, we ball pythons are solitary creatures. Many would say it was strange of me to have taken an assistant at all, but these are the dark and desperate times in which we live.But I had never regretted sharing my home with my assistant until that fateful day, that accursed hour, when he introduced me to Ouba, my fluffy Belial, my Hell on Earth.*Some extracts from the autobiography of Brian Danet Fauvel, ball python of great wisdom, regarding certain unexpected developments in the life of his warmblood personal assistant.Rated T for humans (M for serpentine readers; you have been warned).





	1. L'enfer, c'est les autres

**Author's Note:**

> So our train of ridiculousness ain't showin' no signs of slowin' down. 
> 
> Brian insisted on joining the fray, you see, and we just had to let him.
> 
> **With all due love and respect for these wonderful, talented boys, please do NOT share this piece outside the AO3 community.**
> 
> If you haven't caught up on the previous entries in this series, please do and let us know what you think!

Hell is other people.

Or, more precisely, because I like to be precise, Hell is a small and very hairy warmblood, of a type called “Dog,” who is named Ouba. What sort of a name is that, I ask myself, and many other questions besides.

For example: why did my personal assistant not return for six nights in a row, some weeks ago? It is true, he does often not return until well into the night. But always he used to come back, and he would often pick me up and offer me a nice full-body massage. But then he started being away all night. Not that I am lonely. I am a mighty and learned python; I can amuse myself. I prefer, in fact, my solitude on these dark Paris nights.

I was merely concerned that he might have gotten involved with some nefarious types. Other warmbloods of the Human variety, like himself. Or, worse, devious reptiles against whom my innocent personal assistant would be able to marshal few defenses. He is so tall, but so soft.

*

My worst suspicions were confirmed when my assistant said one morning, loud and sounding feverish, “Listen, Brian.”

I was nearly asleep. I tasted the air several times with some worry. He did not give off a sweaty flavor, as he does when he is ill. But I was troubled nonetheless, as he usually speaks softly to me, particularly when I am settled for sleep in the morning.

I listened with increasing unease as he continued. “What would you say to meeting a new friend?” He then made a noise that, to my ear, always resembled a small brook over stones, but which I know for Human warmbloods is a sign of amusement and good humor. “A very special friend?”

The “very special friend” was another Human warmblood, of rather smaller size than my assistant, and he appeared toward evening that very day. My assistant, speaking fast and with many brook burblings, appeared before my chamber with one of his hands fastened to the hand of this new Human. “Brian, come say hi,” said my assistant.

I was still quite fatigued, what with having been disturbed in the morning and now being disturbed before it was my habitual hour to rise. But, being a gentleman, I uncoiled myself and flicked my tongue in a courteous salutation. The new Human definitively smelled sweaty. I frowned at him. Perhaps he was ill, and would make my assistant ill as well. It is always a great nuisance when my assistant becomes ill.

“Do you want to hold him?” My assistant petted me pleasantly. He is tolerably good at massages, this I cannot deny. “Aw, don’t worry, he’s really friendly.”

I was picked up by my assistant; before I could lodge my sternest protest, he had put me in the damp hands of this smaller Human of his, whom I suspected to be distinctly likely to drop me. On edge, I coiled rather tightly around the Human’s wrists and forearms. He became as stiff as the bark I sleep on.

“Uh—I think he’s stuck,” said the smaller Human. His voice sounded very different from my assistant’s. It sounded like it should belong to a considerably larger warmblood.

Replied my assistant, “Are you scared?”

 _Yes, obviousssly_ , I answered, but as usual was ignored by both of them. Every day is a fresh trial.

“No, hell no,” said the small Human with a rather large voice. “But um, maybe you should take him now.”

My assistant complied and offered me a pleasant rubbing, then replaced me in my chamber. I thanked my ancestors that I made it back to my good, solid bark without being dropped.

Then my assistant asked if his special friend would like to see his _other_ snake. This was a very bad joke. I would immediately kill another snake if my assistant procured one without my permission, and my assistant should know better than to make jokes about it.

But his special friend did not seem offended; another demerit. Instead he burbled and said something I could not catch. After a bit of a scuffle, he and my assistant shed their skins and lay down flat on the floor. A snake-like beginning, I grant you, but then they did not behave like snakes in the slightest. Snakes are marvelous and silent, as you know. Instead they were very loud. They also continued to struggle with one another and make a dreadful waste of their energy. They must have been extremely warm. Incomprehensible, that my assistant would regard a creature with whom he tussles like that as a special friend.

Afterwards they burbled a great deal and put their crumpled skins back on, bumping their faces together all the while. I could not conceal my disdain.

Warmbloods are infinitely puzzling in their customs, and Humans are the strangest of all. Constantly they take off their skins and then put them back on, when the shedding of skin is a slow and delicate process, indeed a transcendent journey, as one evolves into one's Higher Self. Yet they show it no respect.

*

The unfavorable opinion I had instantly formed of this special friend was confirmed when my assistant returned one night, much earlier than usual, but seeming sluggish. He did not activate the overhead heat units or the one on a stand near the window—from discourse with my elders, I understand that these units provide a means for warmbloods such as my assistant to navigate their environs during nights. Such sad, deprived creatures warmbloods are, lacking as they do our superior hunters’ senses.

My assistant banged some things about in the room known in his tongue as “Cuisine.” He still did not activate any heat units. Then he emerged and made a passable imitation with his mouth of a bank of grasses, blowing in the breeze. I could understand my assistant’s frustration at his limited night-sight. But why did he not activate the heat units? My serpentine intuition told me that it must have to do with that small sparring partner with the large voice.

He reached into my chamber and stroked my back. His hand was frigid and damp from, I perceived,  holding a vessel of a fizzing beverage that Human warmbloods enjoy, known, if my memory serves, as “Bière,” and I wriggled with displeasure. But he did not seem to notice. He is clumsy at times, my assistant. All the same, I indulged him.

I was given a mouse for my troubles before my assistant shuffled away. The mouse was stale. Life is suffering.

*

This imitation of grasses and drinking of “Bière” went on for several days. One morning I became more gravely concerned, as, though the sun had long since risen, my human did not put on one of his skins and leave our shared abode as usual. He lay around like he was pretending to be a snake again, but by himself. He lay on the floor. He lay on the sofa. Small noises escaped him. Snakes, again, are silent, so his impression was still unconvincing. Certainly, it was not dignified. He resembled more an injured rodent with those wretched mewlings.

I inquired after his health, but he did not seem to hear me. He was preoccupied with one of his strange Human objects, a cold white block which serves no purpose and has no taste. Of late, his white block has been very noisy, but on this day, it made not a sound. He seemed upset by this and, emitting his gustiest wind-noise yet, he tossed the white block aside and buried his face into the sofa.

This was cause for enough concern that I slithered nearer to the edge of my chamber to speak to him once again. But, abruptly—they are fast-moving when they care to be, most warmbloods—he flung himself to his feet, rushed into his chamber, emerged in some skins that my heat-sight indicated were quite tight and probably would have been cast aside by any self-respecting snake, and hurried away into the Outside.

Little could I have foreseen, in spite of my sagacity and the centuries of accumulated knowledge of my illustrious ancestors, that the worst was yet to come.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you had fun ('cos we sure did), please let us know with a comment/kudos!
> 
> You can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and [@xiangyu](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com).


	2. A premonition of doom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This warmblood “Dog” appeared in the arms of my assistant’s small Human. I was amazed that something so very hairy could be sentient.
> 
> “You two are going to be best friends.”

“Brian, are you ready to meet another special friend?” I frowned deeply as I curled around my assistant’s wrist. He had ceased making grass noises or imitating skinless snakes by himself, but he had taken to spending nights away again. I deduced that his small frightened friend had something to do with these absences.

My assistant lifted me to his shoulders. “You haven’t ever met a dog, have you, Brian?” I must admit that I enjoy being on his shoulders. It is always very warm, and the various textures of his many different skins are pleasant under my belly. Being thus situated tends to place me in a generous mood. I informed my assistant that indeed I had never made the acquaintance of such a creature, but that I appreciated his introducing us. 

“You two are going to be best friends.”

As a rule, we snakes are solitary creatures. Many would say it was strange of me to have taken an assistant at all, but these are the dark and desperate times in which we live. 

But I had never regretted sharing my home with my assistant until that fateful day, that accursed hour, when he introduced me to Ouba, my fluffy Belial, my Hell on Earth.

This warmblood “Dog” appeared in the arms of my assistant’s small Human. I was amazed that something so very hairy could be sentient. I noted that she, too, extruded her tongue, and initially assumed that she would be at least conversant in the rudiments of sociability and courtesy, if not equipped with the mental powers of pythons. I, wrapped about the hands of my assistant, was brought into proximity with her, and bowed politely as I introduced myself. 

The fluff-brained creature immediately made such a racket as I had never heard. It was worse than even when my assistant, for ancestors know what reason, sometimes places one of his large flat black circles onto a flattish brown square near the window and the most horrible, earth-tremoring din is let loose. He seems to prize those circles as I would an especially fat mouse, though per my heat-sight they are totally cold and bloodless. Humans are very perplexing.

At any rate, in the face of the dog’s churlish noises, I curled tightly around my assistant’s forearm, ready to attack. 

Both Humans were utterly useless during this encounter. No attention whatsoever was paid to my safety. The small one, burbling, took out a shiny block approximately comparable in size and temperature to my assistant’s white one; it emitted further noises as he maneuvered it about, getting on his knees, tilting the block this way and that. 

My assistant, meanwhile, put his hand on the fluffy idiot’s head, then used that same hand to massage me. He, too, burbled. “Look how excited she is to see you, finally, Brian!” I rolled my eyes with gravity and eloquence at him, but he did not seem to notice. “See, Princess, Brian likes you too!” 

I was brought yet closer to the furred one. She at last ceased her dreadful clamor and eyed me. “You are Brian?” The Dog language is not so dissimilar from the tongues of other warmbloods, and for a linguistic master such as myself, comprehension was no obstacle.

Communication, too, with lesser species such as these, is hardly a strain. I made her a second bow. “I am,” I replied.

“So you are a snake,” she said. 

“That I am,” I said, already dreading what was sure to be an evening of  _ scintillating _ conversation along these lines. I wondered again what my assistant saw in his small warmblood and the warmblood’s even smaller dog. If he were a reptile, I’d guess he were planning to eventually devour them, as he is clearly the larger, but despite all the noisy tussling between the two Humans, my assistant had apparently not taken a single bite. He sometimes is odd with his food. 

I have witnessed him emerging from the “cuisine” chamber, where he stores his comestibles, carrying three rotund objects that, if I recall, are known as “Mandarines” in Human argot. In lieu of consuming them (and the way he does so is strange, too, for he sheds their skins first instead of swallowing them whole), as I had watched him do in the past, upon that occasion he tossed the “Mandarines” into the air and caught them in succession. 

Evidently this performance was regarded with favor by the smaller Human, who at that time was sitting on the sofa; he burbled loudly and slapped his hands together rapidly. It was an ungodly hour of the day and I went to sleep, but not before the smaller warmblood bared his teeth and requested that my assistant lend a hand with “juggling  _ my _ balls too,” whatever that meant. Mystifying creatures.

I digress. In any event, during our first meeting, the fluffy warmblood Ouba and I were next given some comestibles of our own. I, of course, with my usual poise, swallowed my mouse in one noiseless go within my dining-room. I rested quietly, enjoying the sensation of digestion. I expected my furred companion to do the same, but to my dismay, she threw herself ferociously upon her lump of rawhide, teeth gnashing and snapping. Dogs, like all other warmbloods, it seems, chew their food: what complete savagery!

At last I was returned to my chamber, and the little monster was taken away. The smaller Human also departed. My assistant vibrated a bit as he cleaned around me, replicating the noises of his large black circle. For whatever reason, he seemed pleased.

I, on the other hand (to borrow a Human expression), experienced a premonition of doom.

*

I wish I could say that was the last I saw of that small, furred, incredibly noisy warmblood, but my assistant persisted in bringing us together time and again. To what end, I still do not quite know. 

On one of these blighted occasions, while my assistant and his special friend were otherwise occupied, she was telling me about the Outside, the realm beyond mine. She regards the Outside as her kingdom and surveys it daily alongside her own assistant. She spoke eagerly of the great number of birds and warmbloods frolicking in the environs Beyond. While I would very much like to wrap my jaws around a Parisian pigeon, the likes of which I have sometimes detected lurking on the portal to the Outside I know to be a Windowsill, her endless stream of chatter was beginning to grate on my nerves. 

“I suppose you wouldn’t know,” the creature said smugly. “ _ You _ can’t go outside, can you, without any legs.” 

Goaded beyond endurance, I informed her coldly that I had no need to go Beyond, for there was plenty to see here in my own realm, and I was the master of all its secrets.

This had the intended effect of stemming the tide, but—I, as a fair-minded reptile, will credit her—the little creature is irrepressible. Within moments she was tapping about, this way and that, on her forepaws, all but slavering for information.

“Secrets?” she said. “Secrets? What secrets?”

My outburst was regrettable, and, indeed, I regretted it. The things I have seen do not bear repeating. What I have witnessed, what knowledge I carry within myself, is too horrifying to be shared, and I am too kind and charitable to frighten lesser creatures, particularly juveniles. Even with rodentia, I believe in a clean end. Plus, they are considerably more tender if not frozen with fear at the end.

My assistant, of course, has no secrets from me, and this I told to the creature Ouba.

She made a peculiar whining sound and pawed at the ground with her small feet. “You mean you have been to the parties?” she said. “Tell me! Tell me about the humans’ parties! They do not let me in, no matter how hard I bark!”

As I have described, this small warmblood barks most ferociously. I took a moment to reflect on my assistant’s fortitude, his unexpected mental strength, in resisting these torrents of pure noise.

Just then, the creature barked. “Tell me!”

“I will not tell you,” I said. “You are too young.”

“You’re not old! You are smaller than me.” 

I uncoiled myself slowly. How I wished, at that moment, for a rattle at the end of my tail in the manner of my more aggressive cousins that I could shake forbiddingly at this impertinent gremlin. “I am much longer than you, warmblood, and I have been thoroughly educated by the ancestors.” 

“So you know what kind of parties your human has? Tell! Tell!” 

I attempted to be patient, despite my rising irritation. Does the same fluff that coats this creature’s body also fill her skull? “He is not  _ my _ Human. He is merely a personal assistant.”

She stared. I could almost heat-see the slow spin of her cognitive faculties. “Well,  _ my  _ human is nicer than  _ your  _ human.  _ Your  _ human is the one who started closing the door to keep me out of their fun parties. I am sure one day  _ my  _ human will let me go in and have fun, too. I will bark and bark and bark and bark until he does.”

Rankled thoroughly, I almost again lost my temper, but I forebore. What is life but a series of tribulations to be foreborn? The ancestors teach us methods, and I employed one then: the Sacred Ball. Curling securely in on myself within a pleasant nook of my bark, I ignored all further inquiries from the pestilential Ouba. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brian thanks you for continuing to read this tale of his suffering. Let him know if you enjoyed this installment with a kudos or even a comment!
> 
> You can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and [@xiangyu](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com).


	3. Maybe a four-poster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _As you might expect, and as I certainly expected, things did not improve._
> 
>  
> 
> _The household plunged into a period of overheated activity. My assistant neglected nearly all of his duties to me as he threw himself into a fool’s errand: the destruction of my realm._
> 
>  
> 
> Brian's trials continue.
> 
> Side note: My co-conspirator and I are hard at work on the fourth and final installment of this series ("2 boys, 1 dog, 1 snake"). Maxence is getting ready to tell his tale!

As you might expect, and as I certainly expected, things did not improve. Perplexingly, my assistant seemed buoyed by the shifting currents in our entwined lives. One evening, just as I was stirring from my sleep, he arrived back in our domicile nearly trilling with jubilation. With great elation, he gave me a mouse—perhaps to put me in a more pleasant mood—and spoke to me as I enjoyed it.

“Brian, good news. We found a place!”

I lay tranquilly, encouraging him to continue speaking as he so clearly wished to.

“It’s so big, and south-facing, and with ceilings four meters high!” My assistant did a little twirling. He appeared to be imitating a chipmunk or similar rodent by bouncing and darting about in a manner that was slightly nauseating to myself as I tried to digest my meal. “Just the perfect spot for your house. And the bedroom has blackout shades, and the kitchen’s super, and they’re going to leave us the appliances.” I rustled slightly, still trying to be encouraging, but this torrent of words reminded me of the Ouba creature, and I at last pinpointed the odd warmblood scent I had been detecting on my assistant for some time. She was infecting him.

If I had not so recently ingested a mouse, I would have given him a stern reminder of his duties to me, chief among which, of course, is to tend to my requirements and assignments above those of all others. Instead, I slid toward my hollow log, where I do my best thinking and also where I prefer to meditate after meals. My assistant rudely disregarded my dismissal of his company and persisted in his gallivanting, burbling. “We’ll have to get a new bed. D’you think he’ll agree to a four-poster, Brian? A _four-poster_!”

He said _aah_ for several seconds, still bouncing. This noise, which Humans make on a regular basis, is one of the most difficult to decipher; it may signify fright, or pleasure, or pain. In this case I believed the _aah_ to have been indicative of pleasure, as it was followed up with an _mmm_ and an enormously wide grimace as my assistant bared his frightening teeth to their fullest extent.

This level of agitation was beginning to concern me slightly, as I had never seen my assistant burbling so much; I tasted the air with my tongue, but the scent was inconclusive.

*

Then came the time of Great Chaos. I say “great” as in enormous and all-encompassing, not “positive” and absolutely not “long-awaited,” though I was certainly forewarned by, as I have mentioned, my feelings of heavy foreboding. The household plunged into a period of overheated activity. My assistant neglected nearly all of his duties to me as he threw himself into a fool’s errand: the destruction of my realm.

Every day, he denuded our environs further, vanishing beloved objects into boxes five or six times the size of the humble little carton in which I was first transported to my chambers, all those years ago. The sight of these brown boards, far from kindling any feeling of nostalgia or warmth, ignited within me a bottomless terror. With every dart of my tongue into the seething air, I tasted change.

I also tasted the fuzzy odor of the only creature who could have induced my assistant to such depths of infamy, such excesses of miscreancy.

 _Ouba_.

*

Soon after my assistant’s entombing of all the good things of my kingdom commenced, I again encountered the culprit ("mastermind" being too generous a term) behind this atrocity. Once more, she arrived in the arms of her assistant, who stood very close to mine at the doorway for a round of mutual burbling and occasional head-bumping, a bizarre gesture which I had noted as part of their terrible skin-shedding pantomimes. My befurred malefactor, however, soon seemed weary of the Human escapades and, leaping to the floor, dashed toward my chamber.

“You!” she cried, in tones which indicated she would have exclaimed _Villain!_ had she but known the word. “It is your fault!”

I thought that perhaps I could ignore her, but her frenzied barking alerted the Humans, who in their idiocy interpreted it to be an earnest desire to greet me face to face.

“Aw, look at these two,” said my assistant.

His small friend burbled loudly. “I bet Ouba has a _crush_ on Brian!”

My assistant burbled too. “Cross-species romance. Very taboo.”

Though I protested—we snakes have ascended far beyond such base warmblooded experiences as _romance_ —I was soon fished from my chambers to receive this unwanted audience. We continued our tense exchange, Ouba barking and snuffling on all fours, myself winding languidly down the arm of my assistant.

“You have done this,” she barked. “You have destroyed my life! All of my walks have become very short! All of my toys have been put in squares! My human is yelling and making lots of loud sounds all the time!”

“You young fool,” I replied smoothly, but warningly, “Libel me not for what _you_ have wrought.” She made a confused sniff at this, and I was compelled to rephrase; at times, I forget that I was leagues away the most linguistically gifted of my nestmates. “Do not blame me, Dog, when it is you who have caused this devastation. And they are cubes, not squares.”

“You are mean, a mean snake!” Ouba continued as though she had not comprehended. Indeed, she indubitably had not. “Princess Ouba is the nicest. Brian Snake is the meanest.”

Faced with such unceasing juvenility—certainly my feelings were not hurt—I assumed the Sacred Ball, right there between my assistant’s shoulder and his neck, which I had never done before. This finally alerted him to my desire to immediately desist from conversation (if it could be dignified as such) with the Ouba creature and return to my chamber. He put his face against the glass wall of my chamber and smelled concerned. I remained emballed and ignored him.

“The packing must be stressing Brian out, too,” my assistant said. I uncurled slightly. He was showing signs of sentience. Perhaps the fluff monster had not yet fully corrupted him.

Ouba was given a toy with which to occupy herself. The Humans began to converse, and I sank into a pleasantly calming meditation. Unfortunately, as is my lot, I was soon jarringly roused by heavier vibrations in the air. A quick glance of my heat-sight indicated that the Humans were standing across one of the boxes and that my assistant was moving his hands around rapidly and that his small friend, quite the opposite, faced him with hands hidden and quite still. My assistant was vocalizing strenuously. I could not remember ever seeing him so exercised.

“Come on, I can’t! Not the gifts, absolutely not, and not the sketchbooks—”

“Do you need _four boxes_ of sketchbooks?” The small Human, _i.e._ , Ouba’s colluder, bent to one of the boxes and opened it. “These don’t even have drawings in them!”

“I’ll need them some day,” my assistant said. He was turned away from me, but I could smell something resembling the smell he gave off during the days of the grass-imitating and “Bière”-imbibing. “Hey, I’m not telling _you_ to throw away your important things.”

“I just don’t think there will be room,” the smaller one said. “I don’t want our nice new place to become cluttered, the way—”

“The way my apartment is cluttered? You think this is _clutter_?” My assistant was practically being as loud as Ouba, by this point.

The smaller one quickly responded, “No—that’s not what I meant.” He stuttered for a bit. “There’s going to be more space, I guess.”

“Yes, so—” My assistant also stuttered a bit and wriggled, which I have learned, contrary to appearances, is not an attempt to locomote per a snake, but an expression of worry. “So I was thinking we could get a new bed, actually.” More stuttering and wriggling.

“What? We don't need a new one.” The small Human had been examining the contents of other boxes and remained crouched as he replied. “Mine’s bigger than yours, isn’t it? I thought we were just going to bring that.”

“No, come on, a new one, a nice one that’ll last.”

“Mine’s lasted just fine!”

“I want a bed—a bed for _us_.”

The smaller one stood and burbled a bit. “Are you _jealous_ because other people have spent the night on mine?”

My assistant made some soughing grass noises. These would have been impressively tall grasses, given how loudly, and for how long, he enunciated the sounds. Finally he said, “It’s not too late to back out,” he said. More soughing. “I—maybe I rushed you? We don’t have to. Maybe a little space isn’t bad.”

The other Human spluttered. “What?”

“I mean,” my assistant said, rather slowly, “if you don’t really want to move in together, we—”

The other Human let out a stentorian sound I can only describe as _uncouth_. “I can’t _believe_ you!” he said. “Every single fucking thing I own is in one of five zillion boxes! I can’t believe you’re getting cold feet now!”

An odd sentiment. No doubt borne as usual of profound ignorance. As everyone knows, human feet, indeed all warmblood feet, are, as the word indicates...warm.

My assistant scoffed, I assumed, at the imbecility of this declaration. “ _I’m_ getting cold feet?” he said. “I’m not the one finding a thousand fucking faults with my packing, tearing open all my boxes, and picking over every single thing I own with a fine-toothed comb. You’d have me throw half these boxes in the alley if you had _your_ way.”

“There’s no fucking space for _me_ in your life with all this _shit_ in it!”

The vibrations of the door closing shook my chambers. I sensed several smaller vibrations as the other Human stomped farther away into the Beyond. Suddenly, there came a loud crash, as though something had been knocked over. And then there was silence.

For a brief, glorious moment, I rejoiced, thinking it was all over and life as I had known it could begin again, but then I saw that my assistant’s special friend had left behind his loathsome little creature. She had been quite disturbed by this turn of events and was now launching a frontal assault against the door, pawing and whining at its unyielding surface.

“It is not fair! Do not go for walks without me!” she cried.

Horror of horrors, my assistant went to her and drew her up in his arms, bouncing her this way and that like a Human infant. How any infant of any species could be soothed by such jouncing and rattling is beyond me, but it seemed to work: Ouba ceased her infernal racket and consented to be cradled.

“Shh,” said my assistant to the furred menace. “Don’t worry, _ma petite._ He’ll be back.”

He bared his teeth jauntily enough, but the oscillations of his voice sounded weak and echoey, as though _he_ , not I, was the serpent coiled within a hollow log. Ouba licked at his face. Together, we waited.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you had fun ('cos we sure did), please let us know with a comment/kudos!
> 
> You can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and [@xiangyu](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com).


	4. Princess Ouba Strike!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even now, I wince to think upon it. Much have I witnessed, and much do I know: but at what cost?
> 
> Such is the torment of the wise.
> 
> *
> 
> Ouba defends her human; Brian rues his misfortunes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Princess!  
> Ouba!  
> Strike!
> 
> Just an epilogue to go. Will Brian's suffering ever end?

After a long while, so long that I would have thought that my assistant had fallen asleep if it were not for his periodic wind-in-grass noises, I perceived him lifting up his much-favored cold white block, which was wholly silent, and tapping it with his fingers. It remained silent. He then made a further series of grass noises at it. He lay himself upon his back on the sofa, continuing to stare at the unresponsive block.

Ouba, from her perch on my assistant’s chest, growled at the block and called to me, in haughty tones, “Your human’s white square is just as bad as my human’s shiny square.”

“Whatever _are_ you talking about, creature?”

“They begin to look at them and then they forget about you,” Ouba continued disdainfully. “I do not like these squares at all.”

My assistant’s admittedly bizarre fascination with his block is no concern of mine, so long as he discharges his duties. His performance had been lacking of late, yes, but I attributed it not to his block but to the invasion of the smaller Human and his intolerable companion and the tumult they had brought to my once-peaceful life. I conveyed these conclusions to the foolish Dog, who listened to me not at all.

“I would like to bite the squares,” Ouba said. Such inanity was unworthy of my dignifying it with a reply.

“Fuck,” said my assistant, slapping the block down on the floor. He threw himself hard into the sofa. I thought he might start making those dying rodent noises as he had done previously, but instead he put both hands on the idiot Dog’s head and shuffled them around in her fluff; repulsive. I considered issuing an ultimatum that hands that had so contacted that hairball should not be placed upon my person. Ouba merely issued a series of painfully sharp yipping noises. She let her tongue loll about, not for any discernible need to analyze her surroundings, but merely, it seemed, for the fun of the act.

Truly, she was a creature both puzzling and irritating. I sighed, imperfectly recollecting ancestral tales of a warmblood with three heads tasked with guarding the mouth of the underworld, and contemplated with resignation the high likelihood that said warmblood had returned to the living plane specifically to hound _me_ into an early grave.

*

I was just dozing off, unfortunate visions of Ouba with three heads flashing before me, when a dreadful creak issued forth from the door between the Outside and our formerly pleasant but now box-suffused domicile. “Hey,” my assistant’s small friend said, his voice puny but echoing from the Beyond.

My assistant, who had been, I gathered, prone upon the sofa with the irksome Ouba asleep upon his chest, leapt to his feet.

“You damn—you fucking _paninihead_ ,” he hissed, Ouba still in his arms. The door creaked further ajar, and Ouba came to with a short bark. Then she became most terribly overwrought, snuffling and whining and straining her furry form at her assistant in the single most hideous display of shamelessness I have ever seen. It was all my assistant could do to keep her from tumbling herself directly onto the floor.

The small Human’s arms were also full, not, thankfully, of additional Dog, but of a marvelous jungle of flowers: creamy pink lilies and roses of red and white bursting forth from verdant leaves. Their perfume was cloying, but the blood of my ancestors stirred within me, recalling the days when we stalked our prey from hanging vines.

I looked at the small Human with new eyes. He had hunted, and had returned successful from his foray, it seemed. Surprising; I had detected no telltale lump of prey in his belly. Nonetheless, my assistant seemed likewise impressed. He put down the frantically wriggling Ouba, who promptly began to dash hither and thither at the Humans’ feet, tongue out and panting.

“What’s this?” my assistant said, and his voice was very soft.

“I’m sorry,” the small Human said. “I was behaving like an ass.”

While I have not had the occasion to observe these larger warmbloods in the wild, I found it hard to believe he had been behaving anything remotely like a “Donkey.” From what I gather, Donkeys mainly chew upon grasses and often see this blighted world with the same rational, clear-eyed perspective as I. The small Human had shown little sign of such clarity or sophistication. But I set aside my doubts. He had already surprised me; perhaps he would surprise me again.

My assistant had no comment for this claim. He simply waited.

The small Human continued. “I only want everything to be, like, the best. I want it to be fucking _perfect_. Everything—everything in the right place.” His voice had taken on the warbling quality of a songbird. (I _do_ remember those, from the days of my youth at the place Humans call “Boutique d’Animaux.” At that time, I had thought they would be delicious, but elders warned me that they were never worth the trouble.) “I got scared. What if you realize how—how _lame_ I am—or you regret it—or—or it just doesn’t work out—”

My assistant had finally had enough. He seized the smaller Human in his hands and bumped their heads together—not their mouths, as was evidently customary, but their foreheads. This was some strange Human ritual that I had not yet witnessed, in all my days of living with my assistant, and I was keen to observe more, as I am after all both scholar and gentleman. I uncoiled slightly and peered more closely at the warmbloods.

“Come on, don’t be a _dumb_ ass too,” said my assistant, his head still bowed to press against that of his small friend. “It’s already perfect.”

They moved quickly. The next scan of my heat-sight showed that they were now doing the mouth-bump. I braced myself for imminent skin removal, then reconsidered; perhaps, in addition to accompanying that positively sacrilegious act, these Human mouth-bumps were ritually conducted after mentions of Donkeys? The notion was a fascinating one, and I was certain that no elder had ever discussed it. Buoyed by my pioneering insight, I continued my observations.

My assistant had more to say. He pulled away from the small Human and uttered these words:

“I can’t wait to live together. I can’t wait to fall asleep beside you every night and wake up beside you every morning. To come home to you and be there for you to come home to, to hold you in my arms and be held in return. And I can’t wait to drive you crazy with my piles of shit. You can kick them over if you want to. I’m not going anywhere.”

There was a pause during which the air grew noticeably more humid. I have seen Humans release quantities of water from their eyes and sometimes their noses, in addition to the moisture that simply seeps from their pores. This Human was doing all three. Horrifying. I could not understand how my assistant could bear to stand so close to him.

“I got you this, too,” the smaller Human said, eventually. As I looked on, he produced from a dangling sack a slim, cool square, a “Livre,” as they are called in the Human tongue. My assistant took it and turned slowly through its pages, which were—I strained to get a better scan—all white.

“I thought,” the small Human continued, “maybe you could find some use for this. After you get through your other boxes of sketchbooks.”

“Darling,” my assistant said, in a tone of voice I had never heard before. “Thank you.”

“And maybe we can get a new bed,” the smaller one finished. “If you really want to.”

My assistant became very quiet, quite impressively snakelike, in fact; a snake about to strike.

“Oh, yes?” he said. “A four-poster?”

I, with my superior serpentine instincts, sensed danger. But the small Human unwisely continued. “Huh? Why’re you so fixated on this four-poster?” he said. And then, with an air of dawning realization: “You just want to tie me to that thing, don't you?”

“Yes,” my assistant said, leisurely, “of course.”

My assistant’s so-called friend also became quiet, but not in a very snakelike way; he made odd noises with his mouth and gave off a big burst of heat all over his head, which startled me. It seemed to have startled my assistant, too, because he tried to put his arms around the small Human, burbling. _At last_ , I said to myself, and awaited the unhinging of the jaw. _He’s long overdue for a proper meal._

But my assistant was not as subtle in his approach as I would have been, nor was he, perhaps, as determined. The smaller one easily struggled free, evading a second swipe of my assistant’s clumsy arms.

“Are you _blushing_ , darling?” My assistant burbled and lunged, and I found myself cheering for his tenacity.

“Am _not_!” The small Human scurried toward me, saw me eyeing him, then scurried away, putting the low table before the sofa, at that point still covered with bric-a-brac not yet boxed, between himself and my assistant.

“I’ll let you tie _me_ too, if you want to.” This was met with sputtering and other odd noises from the smaller one. I sensed that my assistant’s hunger would soon be assuaged, and indeed it was so; he made his prey gasp aloud as he stepped on top of the table, scattering items hither and thither, then dropped to the other side, pushing his victim backward onto the sofa.

“Wait, wait!” the small Human exclaimed. My assistant seemed unlikely to be deterred in his quest for fresh flesh, but his struggling prey added, as a last, evidently desperate cry for help, “Ouba—Ouba!”

Thus summoned, she courageously plunged into the fray, darting at my assistant with all the speed and ferocity of a furred cobra. “Princess Ouba Strike!” I confess, I was rather impressed by her quickness and her determination, even if her loyalties were so clearly misplaced.

But before she could do much more than release that single yap, my assistant had scooped her up in his hands. There she dangled, her little feet kicking uselessly.

“You are a mean, bad human,” she barked. “Even if you give me nice toys and bows and pats. I do not forgive you! You make my human make strange noises! Big mean human!”

“Ah, yes,” my assistant said, unfazed by this onslaught. “Just one second, my love. Don’t you dare move from this spot.”

“Okay,” the small Human said; how warm in the face he had become!

I then witnessed a glorious event: the summary ejection of Ouba into the other room. Just as she had described to me, my assistant carried her into his chamber and shut the door in her face! Deaf were they to her pleading barks, her plaintive demands to be allowed in to the party. Once or twice she even called upon me, as though I, Brian, Snake, Philosopher, Scholar, would deign to slither across the floor to grant her entry. Though she protested passionately at first, eventually her cries tapered into forlorn mutterings, and her feet no longer battered at the door. Soon after, she fell quiet. Perhaps she had exhausted herself and given in to sleep.

Meanwhile, my assistant and his Human had long since divested themselves of their skins. They began to writhe about, burbling happily despite entangling themselves in such a manner that I wondered if they would be ever able to disaggregate their oozy warmblood bodies again. Even now, I wince to think upon it. Much have I witnessed, and much do I know: but at what cost? Such is the torment of the wise.

My initial delight at Ouba’s dismissal had, as you may have gathered, faded altogether. I almost wished she were not so young and stupid, such that she, too, could have stayed to look on and share the burden of my hellish suffering.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your kudos and comments. We're delighted to announce that we've completed the series finale, and even more delighted to warn you that you are NOT READY for what we will unleash over 6 chapters. ;)
> 
> As always, you can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and [@xiangyu](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com).


	5. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But all things must come to an end.

But all things must come to an end. After an unusually protracted period of torturing me, the Humans extricated themselves from each other and retrieved their skins. I mimicked the Human noise of the wind moving through the rushes, flooded with relief that the display was over.

Ouba was released from her prison, and again demanded of me the spilling of all my secrets. Wearied and mortified though I was by what I had seen, I nevertheless showed great restraint, saying only that it had been a party for the ages. She sulked for days.

Not long after, the time of Great Chaos itself came to an end, not with a bang, but with indeed hundreds of bangs: of myself, returned to the cool darkness of cardboard, of the rumbling and thudding and roaring of a strange mechanical beast, of the noise of thunderous Human footsteps going up and down, up and down; of Ouba, demanding stridently to be let out of her carrier, of myself, being shaken like a jelly in my crate.

Then, at last, it was over, and all was still, and I was lifted from my box into a calm wide space, into which golden sunlight fell and gentle breezes flowed. I tasted the air with my tongue and found it to be pleasing, mild with the scent of spring. Ouba quieted, too, and I heard her snuffling as she drew in the smells of our new environs.

The small Human was already bounding forth, with loud cries, to examine the enormous windows that surrounded us on all sides.

“Well, Brian?” said my assistant, with a soft baring of his teeth. “What do you think?”

I was silent, content to coil myself about his arm as he stroked me. I enjoy sometimes keeping my assistant in suspense.

*

I will confess _now_ , several nights in, and out of earshot of either Human, that the atmosphere within my new realm is not altogether intolerable.

And, I must confess, Ouba is not always so insufferable either. She is merely a veritable creature of Hell the great majority of the time.

For instance, it was nigh on unbearable when she returned to our shared abode just as I was dropping off to sleep this morning, towing the small Human behind her, barking shrilly of this and that, of her new kingdom Beyond and the recalcitrant subjects within it, such as the pompously fluffy cat that sits insolently in the window of a shop just around the corner, barely blinking its rude green eyes in open defiance of her “Beauté et Majesté,” or so she claims.

However, she then partially redeemed herself. Her barrage of noise stemmed itself as both of us were alerted to an enticingly large, rotund pigeon descending onto the windowsill. “Look at that fat bird,” she said; I could nearly hear the spittle gathering in her greedy little mouth. “I think it would be tasty.”

“I am compelled to agree,” I admitted. “I have yet to sample such a meaty bird.”

“It is so big!”

We were silent together for a moment. The Humans were burbling and yammering together in the new “Cuisine,” perhaps feeding, or perhaps skinning themselves and head-bumping yet again.

They had been especially unconscionable in recent days, flinging their skins here and there and throwing each other down on various surfaces with the complete abandonment of all decorum and propriety. At times they barely bothered to put their skins back on before starting in on their bumping and grappling again. I heard murmurings of odd words, if they were even words, like “Baptême” and “Péchoking” and “Le mec de ma vie.”

I gave silent thanks that there existed a solid wall between them and myself, relieving me of the horrors of watching them gnashing and chewing...or worse.

“I will catch it for you and both of us can have some,” Ouba offered then. “I am very beautiful, but I am also the fastest and strongest dog in all of Paris. Probably in the whole world. A fat bird like that is easy for me.”

With true surprise—a sentiment most unusual to myself, for I am oracular in my wisdom, as you have surely observed throughout this autobiography—I replied, “That is generous of you, Dog.”

Ouba sniffed. “I am a princesssss. Princesses are niccce. Princesses sssshare.”

She hissed these statements in a passable imitation of serpentspeak; another courtesy. I was reeling, but I refused to be outdone by this fluffball. I resolved at once to bestow some of my infinite generosity upon her, too. I would teach her some—though not all—of my secrets. I would impart to her whatever portion of the wisdom of my ancestors her fur-fuddled brain could comprehend. Perhaps, when she was ready, I would also share with her the dire truth of the Human parties.

For the moment, I replied with grace, “Well, I thank you.”

As one, we returned our gazes to the unsuspecting pigeon on the windowsill. The warmth of the sun was upon us. In the Cuisine, the Humans were burbling. It was, I conceded, not such a bad day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! For now...
> 
> Get jazzed for the fourth and final installment in this series—coming next week!
>
>> _In a little more than a week, Maxence will be there, at the foot of that mountain. He has never been to Chamonix in any season, though he’s pretended before, for a shoot that had a huge false snowy backdrop, an impressively powerful wind machine, and several coats for him to wear, each with a fur ruff wider and heavier than the next. He thinks about Axel’s sun-brown arms and how very pleasant it will be to have them wrapped around him again._
>
>> Not long after they move in together, Axel heads to the Alps for a film project. Maxence, holding down the fort in Paris with Brian and Ouba, has a tough few weeks.
> 
> If you had fun ('cos we sure did), please let us know with a comment/kudos!
> 
> You can find us on tumblr: [@hallo-catfish](http://hallo-catfish.tumblr.com) and [@xiangyu](http://xiangyu.tumblr.com).


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